The Boss AD-10 Acoustic Preamp – your DI salvation?

The Boss AD-10 Acoustic Preamp was announced this morning, and, I have to say, I’m quite intrigued. I don’t play as much acoustic now as I used to – despite my resolution – but I do very much prefer the sound of sticking a mic in front of it, rather than plugging in direct. However, plugging in direct is so easy, particularly at open-mic nights with quick turnarounds, that I’ll admit that is what I tend to do. Could the Boss AD-10 Acoustic Preamp be the answer?

Meet the Boss AD-10 Acoustic Preamp

The Boss AD-10 is designed to be your one box solution for gigging (and recording for that matter) with your acoustic guitar. While it does plenty more, one of the key features of the Boss AD-10 is to use Boss’ clever ‘Acoustic Resonance’ technology to make the sound from your under-saddle pickup sound more like the sound you’d get if a pro recording engineer put a great mic in front of it, in a great room and spent the time finding the perfect placement.

While this is obviously super-convenient for the stage, if you record at home it can come in pretty handy as well. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a great-sounding live room at home, so recording with mics can often lead to ‘boxy’ sounding recordings. If you don’t happen to have a software solution – such as the Sound Machine Wood Works plugin available on the Universal Audio UAD platform – the AD-10 could be just the thing…

Of course, there’s more to the AD-10 than just that…

Boss AD-10 – Features and Controls

Looking at the fron panel of the AD-10, you can see there’s a lot going on. Let’s take a look at what you get:

Feedback reduction

Acoustic resonance

4-band EQ

Delay/chorus effect

Ambience effect

Tuner

Level boost

80 second looper

Not bad for one box that should fit in the pocket of your gig bag…

Boss AD-10 – Connectivity

Looking ’round the back, the AD-10 should have you covered connections-wise. Stereo XLR and 1/4″ jack outputs should let you get plugged in to whatever it is you need to get plugged into without too much hassle. And the left 1/4″ doubles as a headphone out.

You get an effects loop with 1/4″ send and returns, an expression pedal input, switches for mono/stereo operation and a ground-lift switch to try and combat any hum issues.

Usefully, you also get two guitar inputs with adjustable input sensitivity, so you can get your main and backup guitars plugged in ready for the gig, simplifying mid-set guitar changes.

Overall then, the Boss AD-10 looks like a tasty piece of gear… Thoughts?